I think Invisionapp.com, an amazing collaboration platform for designers, can do a better job in terms of collecting more signups on their long homepage. I’m openly challenging the very bottom of their homepage which contains a set of horizontally aligned form fields. I think that the form fields could apply the Natural Language Forms pattern organizing them as sentences. More so, based on 6 observed tests using this pattern (with 4 positive results), I can also make an approximate effect guess of +7.6% more signups. There, I made a public prediction! Now will InVision test this? I hope so, since there is still so much to learn.

InVision Should Test This Pattern With These 3 Key Changes

Here is what I would change if I were to apply the Natural Language Forms pattern to InVision’s homepage. The concept contains 3 key properties:

Fields As First Person Narrative
All form fields are weaved together into sentences using a first person narrative. The form labels and reasons for filling them out are all written from the reader’s perspective.

Benefit Amplification
Benefits should be mentioned and reminded of throughout the narrative. In this concept, we suggest to reuse the key benefits from the headline: “design better, faster, together” (with additional consistency of message).

Measuring Success

In order to gauge whether this pattern is successful or not I would setup the test as follows:

Audience: Desktop + Anyone Who Sees The Form
I would include only desktop traffic in the test (although it would be interesting to mirror the test in a mobile segment). Furthermore, because the change is actually quite far down on the page, I would also further segment the test results to those people that actually scroll down to the bottom of the screen (and see the variant).

Primary: Signups
The primary metric would be a successful shallow signup – measured with a next page visit in the registration flow.

Secondary: First Project Creation
It’s good practice to measure something closer to the business, further in the funnel. In this case it could be either a deeper task (such as first project creation) or even further (becoming a paying customer).

Outcomes & Updates

I really hope to influence InVision to test this concept and share the data with everyone in here so we can learn something about natural language forms. Here is what has happened so far:

April 28, 2017 – InVision Has Seen It

I reached out to InVision about this challenge and Clark Valberg (the company’s awesome CEO) confirmed he noticed it at least.

Great test idea. This reminds me a bit of direct mail order form copywriting. I looked at the copy and wondered, since it’s at the bottom of the page and follows the credibility ‘bar’, if it could remind the viewer with a Why?/Because benefit reinforcement/reminder. This sample includes a pre-head, mini-headline and a restatement of the benefit in/on the CTA button. _____ Elevate Your Design Process. With Invision You: Prototype | Present | Revise | Succeed Be Better – Design Better, Faster, Together Hi, my name is [ ] and I want to design better, faster, together. Get me designing… Read more »

I feel a consistent narrative perspective is important. And I tend towards second person narrative throughout the sites I design. However this challenge brings to mind the concept of a “conversation” narrative with the narrative, when appropriate, as in this challenge, for example, changing from “your name” to “my name”. In that case I think it’s important to clarify the conversation narrative boundaries for the user, i.e., when I am talking (the site designer) and when you are talking (the site user). So here the thought comes to mind to present the subscription form in the form of a template… Read more »